Evening -

I learned something today. I usually write what's going on in the moment, so in the morning, I'm in that lovely, just popped out of the dream state place, and I write and post. This morning, I wrote my offering and went to post and learned that LJ was down at 8 AM, not 8 PM. I need to read a little more carefully.

Okay, I think, I'll post when it comes back on. I come in to check about 1 and the sun is shining and suddenly my posting seems rather innocent, in need of protection, in the harsher light of day. I feel shy. So, now, it is evening, and I've had a medicinal glass of wine and I slip it in, like silk on skin.

from early this morning:

Impermanence

A friend notices and writes for a few moments or longer each day as the sun rises and sets.She notices the earth’s turn.I rose when it was dark and did the same this morning.

Then, we spoke for our writing time and I plunged in.She was in a retreat this weekend, and was given an “assignment,” fifteen minutes to write five events of her life and three to come.I started there and wrote a little poem, and then, something entered, and I wrote what I thought was the “perfect poem.”Then, my computer locked up and Word shut down.The poem is lost and I did a ditty of re-creation, reminded of when I saw Tibetan monks work for a week on sand paintings and then, blow it all away.I was astonished, but considering the subject of the poem, it was appropriate it vanish, lesson taught and received.

When I read the notice about Live Journal shutting down, I thought it was from 8 to 12 tonight, so I was prepared for that lapse, but when I came to post this morning, I saw that it was down, and, again, I laugh.Impermanence.Change.Birth.Death.The theme of why we’re here.Receive, and in that, give.

Events

My father died.I was nineteen.

The world divided. The net split.

Marriage brought it together.

Children bounced on the hem of union.

Friends held the ends.

Barack Obama became president.

The family was one.

Even death entered.

Eyes wept and dried.

44 and 59

At Tengboche, a monastery, 13,000 feet,

an early morning Birth Day chant,

a cacophony of horns and conch shells

opens the mind.

I saw the beginning and end of the universe,

formation, Big Bang.

I carried that image with me, a comfortable flag to wave,

when convenient.

Then, a tap.It was happening as I experienced it,

creation and destruction of the moment

again and again

now and now and now

breath ends

begins.

This brings me to another subject.Native peoples were aware of the survival of the tribe.When people aged, at a certain point, they knew it was time and walked off to die.

I was talking to a woman yesterday whose mother is 91.She is currently shuttled between the hospital and nursing home.She has had a stroke, many of them, small ones, and her mind is active and she has no quality of life.

There are a huge number of we baby boomers.I think there is a place for us to begin preparing to let go.I don’t think society can or should support us as we begin to outlive our usefulness and yes, there is always wisdom to impart, but this desire, this insistence on keeping people alive, because we can, without an awareness of what it might mean to them, and the world, seems wrong.I think it is time to start preparing for transition, and this is something we should always do.This breath, the next.Stop at the threshold as you go through a door, enter, leave.Each moment we do transition and how often do we acknowledge it.I think looking at it now will help with decisions when the time comes for each of us to have a choice in how we depart.I think most of us choose dignity and what benefits the whole.

I'm going through my old journals. I came across some notes from a sensory awareness workshop in February of 96.

Elsa Gendler called Sensory Awareness, the “folding afterward.” Charlotte Selver, her student, who lived to over 100, would often say, “Let your lips bloom.”

In this workshop Charlotte said, “Make your legs slender. Undo the knots, the holding, the anger, the protection. We would work with the four dignities of man, lying, sitting, walking, standing. When we give up holding in the body, we give it up in life. We release. We become more human when the mind becomes quieter and deep anxieties ease. We must give this time, this play of ease.

Gently open and close the eyelids. Trace the eye socket with your hand; honor the bone of your cheek, the rise, the size. Raise one leg up from the ground, a little will do. Place it down gently. Does the floor rise to meet your foot? Do this a few times with one foot and then, the other. Feel your sit bones, your chair. Are you meeting the support of the chair? How about the back of your head? Are you breathing there? Do you feel your back? Do you experience yourself like a tree, 360 degrees around?

What can we learn from a stone? Carry one in your hand. Place it on your head. If it is small, lie down and rest it on your eyes, your forehead, your shoulders. Knowing down, we know up. Notice how you feel about this stone. Are you feeling attached? How do you hand it to another, place it in their hand.

Just so, we live, and pass our breath, our heart and hearth, to another, to the world.

From Rod MacIver at Heron Dance - I’ve read that cloudy days bring out our creativity. Studies show that artists and writers are more productive on cloudy, rainy days. I wonder about the evolutionary roots of that tendency.

Perhaps on cloudy days, we turn inward and have more access to our inner world because wet, cold weather kept our ancestors inside, huddled around the fire, staring at the flames and thinking, or repairing their tools and clothing.

I heard the fog horns start going crazy about noon. The fog has returned. The temperatures drop about twenty degrees just like that and we are wrapped, cocooned.

I think I am molting right now. I saw a wonderful little garter snake yesterday, a tiny guy, and I thought of the moltings ahead of him. I have fewer left than I used to, and still they come.